So finally I'm back from my work trip. I've always wondered that why I'm surrounded by so many people belonging to the Jain community ? Not that its bad, but it keeps me annoying that the religion whose ideology I've never ever understood, I actually interact with people belonging to this religion only. Many important people in my life actually belong to the Jain religion. And particularly my most important client's of South Gujarat, they all follow Jainism. And so naturally every time I visit religious talks become part of our initial discussions. And more so as the colleague with whom I travel, he too is a Jain. And more importantly he is a very knowledgeable person when it comes to knowing different rituals of Jainism, knowing many monks and there whereabouts and also the in and outs of various religious trusts of Jainism in Ahmedabad.
We were in the town of Navsari on the first day of our trip. It was the day's last visit to one very shroud and selfish kind of client. A millionaire who doesn't have the heart to let go of even a single penny... ;) Never bothers to see that he is wearing, a shirt which has only 4 buttons out of 5 ? His shop has 3 rooms. The first front room where he sits and meets his vendors and clients. The second and middle one and the third and last one all in one line. Interestingly and annoyingly every time we visit he takes my colleague to the last room and always does some private talks... ;) It is very annoying ;) This time he took us both to the last room to finish the accounts fast without any disturbance. Then we came out to receive the payment. Out of nowhere started a religious discussion about the functioning of various trusts in Jainism in Ahmedabad and Navsari. And to my horror what I heard was just too disgusting.
They were actually discussing how so many trustee's in this so called trusts in have cheated and stolen public's money which they had donated for one cause or the other. How money donated to the temple or to the trust in the name of God for some holy purpose was all stolen and used by the trustee's for their personal expenses. Though majority of the donors use their black money for such donations... ;) No wonder as they say money earned in the wrong way always is spend in the wrong purpose. At least that is what I've learned and experienced in my life. In a country that besides being among the top in population, is also among the top in corruption. Somehow it is now rooted so deep in our culture that to escape from it is one herculean task now. And small forms of corruption is actually now considered as tips. Pay some bribe and get your thing done. Right from the bottom till the top, take any system in our day to day life its for sure corrupted.
And then we all blame the politicians for huge scams that are coming up one after the other. After all this politicians were born from us only. Since childhood we've been seeing our near and dear one's bribing the traffic cop on the roads, or even we are given bribe as a child to do well in our studies. Right from getting admission in school till our body is burnt, we bribe in one way or the other. So after all when we blame and curse this big politicians for eating up the tax payers money, why don't we look at ourselves. Everyone resorts to bribing in their own capacities. More powerful the person, the more corrupt he gets. Sometimes I wonder how much money one needs to live a comfortable or even luxurious life... ? After all the money one accumulates by corruption can never stop us from dying. ;) And doesn't this men have even a little bit of humanity to think and do something for the really needy people of this country... ?
We have one minister in the current central govt. who had an attach of paralysis and now has problem while speaking. He was slapped in public by one guy for his alleged role in the rising food inflation in this country. Prices of milk, sugar, veggies, pulses which are the most important for the mostly vegetarian population of this country have more than doubled in the last one year but the govt. does nothing. Thanks to the opening of commodity exchange. A very close colleague always keeps saying that if corruption gets even halved in this country, the things that are priced at Re. 1.00 can be available at 0.50 paise. This is just one small example. It seems today that in this great country with not so great population, corruption has got into our culture.
So what to do now ? I feel unless we all decide on ourselves to be honest and for once say NO to bribing things might change. Pay the fines instead of bribes. Once the new generation gets habituated to not to bribe, the people getting into government might not resort to corruption. Or is it that our politics is such that even the non-corrupt gets corrupted ? Well lots of doubts... But I guess its high time we start to fight the rule of corruption. Its not going to change overnight or in a year or two. Something that has gone deep in our daily life, might need few years or a decade to bring it down to extremely low levels. This country needs another freedom fight from the rule of corruption.
And then we all blame the politicians for huge scams that are coming up one after the other. After all this politicians were born from us only. Since childhood we've been seeing our near and dear one's bribing the traffic cop on the roads, or even we are given bribe as a child to do well in our studies. Right from getting admission in school till our body is burnt, we bribe in one way or the other. So after all when we blame and curse this big politicians for eating up the tax payers money, why don't we look at ourselves. Everyone resorts to bribing in their own capacities. More powerful the person, the more corrupt he gets. Sometimes I wonder how much money one needs to live a comfortable or even luxurious life... ? After all the money one accumulates by corruption can never stop us from dying. ;) And doesn't this men have even a little bit of humanity to think and do something for the really needy people of this country... ?
We have one minister in the current central govt. who had an attach of paralysis and now has problem while speaking. He was slapped in public by one guy for his alleged role in the rising food inflation in this country. Prices of milk, sugar, veggies, pulses which are the most important for the mostly vegetarian population of this country have more than doubled in the last one year but the govt. does nothing. Thanks to the opening of commodity exchange. A very close colleague always keeps saying that if corruption gets even halved in this country, the things that are priced at Re. 1.00 can be available at 0.50 paise. This is just one small example. It seems today that in this great country with not so great population, corruption has got into our culture.
So what to do now ? I feel unless we all decide on ourselves to be honest and for once say NO to bribing things might change. Pay the fines instead of bribes. Once the new generation gets habituated to not to bribe, the people getting into government might not resort to corruption. Or is it that our politics is such that even the non-corrupt gets corrupted ? Well lots of doubts... But I guess its high time we start to fight the rule of corruption. Its not going to change overnight or in a year or two. Something that has gone deep in our daily life, might need few years or a decade to bring it down to extremely low levels. This country needs another freedom fight from the rule of corruption.
No comments:
Post a Comment